Elon suspended the accounts of journalists *who wrote stories about things he did not like*, under a policy that was hastily enacted during the middle of the news cycle where he was banning people doing things that he did not like, but promised to leave alone after he purchased Twitter (@ElonJet).
Let me be clear that I think that Elon is 100% within his rights to ban whoever he chooses, shaky pretext or no, but let's not pretend that he has some higher point about media responsibility that he's making from his throne at Twitter.
Had he banned people NOT reporting on something related to him, he may have had a point. If he had those transparent policies you mentioned and we watched the process unfold before the banning, he may have had a point. Had he not doxxed people himself in the past, he may have had a point. If he didn't delegate the decision to unsuspend them to a Twitter poll (one that went against his actions, that he quickly disregarded), he might have had a point. Let's not pretend that Elon is playing some form of 11-Dimensional Chess when he's petulantly deciding to take his toys and go home.
It's also a COLOSSALLY stupid move for Elon to be banning reporters, because as far as I can tell, the only distinguishing feature that makes Twitter worth talking about (as opposed to one of its competitors) is the fact that it has a critical mass of media folks on it. (I don't see Mastodon handles below names in news.) Media folks may not be driving a lot of direct revenue themselves (after the checkmark fiasco), but they do drive a LOT of advertising revenue from folks reading what the media folks are writing, so banning @ElonJet is one thing, but banning the reporters talking about @ElonJet is just the latest in Elon's series of own goals.
Yet we know Elon is not colossally stupid. So I tend to discard "colossally stupid" as a motive. I do think he did this to make a point. I can't figure any other motive, because Elon has not been thin-skinned in the past. It could have been the @elonjet issue where a stalker could have harmed his 2-year-old child. That would shake up any parent. If you look at this in context of all the crap Musk has taken on Tesla, SpaceX, and some of the weird creepy stuff he's done (Thailand cave for instance), it's more likely a point he had to make than vengeance against reporters. It may backfire but it does make his point.
I'd also take issue with "Yet we know Elon is not colossally stupid." I haven't seen ANYONE burn so much reputation and shareholder value (as far as TSLA shareholders are concerned) around a dumb pot joke made earlier in the year. We may not often get the opportunity to see DUMB at this scale, so it's hard to recognize as such.
If that's the case, then he's making a big mistake dwelling on the past trying to drive home a point about something that happened before his watch. I genuinely don't get it - let's assume that Twitter was some Leftist hotbed that was unfair to conservatives. Shouldn't he be highlighting all the great conservative content that is now available on Twitter, instead of re-litigating the whole jet thing?
At this point, the whole "Twitter Files" thing and this (if he actually has a point here, and isn't just reacting) seems to be an attempt to paint how bad Twitter was in order to raise his profile for saving it? I see a lot of "here's why folks should have not BEEN on Twitter" and not a lot of "here's why folks should BE on Twitter now".
I'm honestly surprised that the other folks who purchased the company with him haven't shuffled him back to Tesla (where he has some agitated shareholders) and found another CEO to run the place and get it back to a place where users want to spend time and money and advertisers want to buy users' attention.
Elon suspended the accounts of journalists *who wrote stories about things he did not like*, under a policy that was hastily enacted during the middle of the news cycle where he was banning people doing things that he did not like, but promised to leave alone after he purchased Twitter (@ElonJet).
Let me be clear that I think that Elon is 100% within his rights to ban whoever he chooses, shaky pretext or no, but let's not pretend that he has some higher point about media responsibility that he's making from his throne at Twitter.
Had he banned people NOT reporting on something related to him, he may have had a point. If he had those transparent policies you mentioned and we watched the process unfold before the banning, he may have had a point. Had he not doxxed people himself in the past, he may have had a point. If he didn't delegate the decision to unsuspend them to a Twitter poll (one that went against his actions, that he quickly disregarded), he might have had a point. Let's not pretend that Elon is playing some form of 11-Dimensional Chess when he's petulantly deciding to take his toys and go home.
It's also a COLOSSALLY stupid move for Elon to be banning reporters, because as far as I can tell, the only distinguishing feature that makes Twitter worth talking about (as opposed to one of its competitors) is the fact that it has a critical mass of media folks on it. (I don't see Mastodon handles below names in news.) Media folks may not be driving a lot of direct revenue themselves (after the checkmark fiasco), but they do drive a LOT of advertising revenue from folks reading what the media folks are writing, so banning @ElonJet is one thing, but banning the reporters talking about @ElonJet is just the latest in Elon's series of own goals.
Yet we know Elon is not colossally stupid. So I tend to discard "colossally stupid" as a motive. I do think he did this to make a point. I can't figure any other motive, because Elon has not been thin-skinned in the past. It could have been the @elonjet issue where a stalker could have harmed his 2-year-old child. That would shake up any parent. If you look at this in context of all the crap Musk has taken on Tesla, SpaceX, and some of the weird creepy stuff he's done (Thailand cave for instance), it's more likely a point he had to make than vengeance against reporters. It may backfire but it does make his point.
I'd also take issue with "Yet we know Elon is not colossally stupid." I haven't seen ANYONE burn so much reputation and shareholder value (as far as TSLA shareholders are concerned) around a dumb pot joke made earlier in the year. We may not often get the opportunity to see DUMB at this scale, so it's hard to recognize as such.
If that's the case, then he's making a big mistake dwelling on the past trying to drive home a point about something that happened before his watch. I genuinely don't get it - let's assume that Twitter was some Leftist hotbed that was unfair to conservatives. Shouldn't he be highlighting all the great conservative content that is now available on Twitter, instead of re-litigating the whole jet thing?
At this point, the whole "Twitter Files" thing and this (if he actually has a point here, and isn't just reacting) seems to be an attempt to paint how bad Twitter was in order to raise his profile for saving it? I see a lot of "here's why folks should have not BEEN on Twitter" and not a lot of "here's why folks should BE on Twitter now".
I'm honestly surprised that the other folks who purchased the company with him haven't shuffled him back to Tesla (where he has some agitated shareholders) and found another CEO to run the place and get it back to a place where users want to spend time and money and advertisers want to buy users' attention.